


Tangled Up In You

by Demi_jos10



Series: The Webs We Weave [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-25 21:15:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16205813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demi_jos10/pseuds/Demi_jos10
Summary: A story of fate-forged connections.----This is a rewrite of a story I wrote my freshman year of high school.





	Tangled Up In You

“Is it weird?” Mia asks, her head dangling upside down from the arm of the couch she’s draped across.

“You’re gonna have to be more specific, M,” Remi says, barely looking up from the sketchbook sitting in their lap. It’s mostly filled with aimless doodles and art class assignments.

“Not having a romantic mark. Like, I know you’re not into it but the lack of a mark when everyone else has one is weird, right?”

“I guess,” Remi says, chewing on the end of their pencil. “I mean, no one really says anything about it, and I don’t want the mark anyway, so I don’t really think about it much. Is it weird to you?”

“Not really. I’ve heard some people gossiping about it, usually the normal ‘oh that’s so sad’ bullshit, and I was wondering if any of it was actually like, true.”

“Nah. I’ve got you and I’ve got the bruises. I think I’m set,” Remi says, finally looking up from their sketch. It wasn’t turning out well anyway. They smile at Mia, a bright, warm thing, and the two move on.

They’ve known for a while, you see. Remi and Mia have known each other since they were seven, and they’re nearly seventeen now. Spending that long knowing someone, it’s hard not to figure it out.

Remi is ace, has been their whole life, but they love Mia and they always have. Mia is straight and has never doubted it, but she loves Remi and she always will. They didn’t notice at first, that they were closer to each other than was normal for kids their age. They both thought they were confused for siblings so often because they had the same hair color and both wore glasses.

It wasn’t until they were in middle school that Remi figured it out. They lived far enough away that they went to different middle schools, and it was that distance that made things a little more clear.

Middle schoolers are notorious for wanting to be high schoolers, and this presents itself in everything from their attempts at fashion to the things they gossip about. A popular topic is soulmate marks and who yours symbolizes.

It’s when someone asks Remi about the giant fire covering their entire back, outlined in a cool blue and curling around their neck and shoulders, and they answer Mia without even thinking about it, that it all clicks.

Remi knows they have two soulmates. Remi knows both of their soulmates are platonic. They know that one of them, the one they share bruises with, is a guy and he’s a year younger than them, which is weird because that means he’s a sixth grader and all the sixth graders they know are basically infants.

Remi also knows that their other soulmate is Mia. They don’t know how they know but they do, and that’s really all that matters.

Unfortunately, they’re in middle school, so it’s a few days before Remi sees Mia again and can share this revelation.

“Mia guess what,” Remi says as soon as they see Mia.

“What’s up?” Mia says, barely halfway out of the passenger seat of her mom’s Honda Civic.

“We’re soulmates,” Remi says, very proud of themself for figuring it out.

“Yes, and?” Mia says, finally climbing the rest of the way out of the car. Her spiked choker isn’t buckled properly and falls off. Remi picks it up for her.

“You knew?” Remi asks. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“I thought you knew?” Mia says. “I would have told you if I knew you didn’t know, but I thought you did so I didn’t.”

“Well thanks I guess,” Remi says. “Hey, did you watch SAO last night? It was crazy and I wanna talk about it.”

“No, we had to go visit my grandparents. What happened?”

Most people have two soulmates, a platonic and a romantic. Statistically, you meet your first soulmate in college and your second well after you graduate. Remi is already ahead of the curve, having met their first soulmate at the age of seven. They’re almost expecting the universe to balance itself out and give them their second soulmate when they’re old and grey, but they’re pleasantly surprised when that isn’t the case.

What happens is this: Remi is easily startled and their soulmate had a weird bruise on the back of his neck. He saw it mirrored on Remi’s neck when they happened to be visiting the same cafe and approached them. They weren’t paying attention and nearly fell off their chair when an unexpected hand tapped their shoulder. They punched their soulmate in the face. They both got black eyes.

Later, after they’re both fairly certain nothing is broken, he introduces himself as James. With him is his friend Derek, who has a small doodles covering his arms. Remi recognizes the doodles because they drew them on Mia’s arm this morning while she read something on her phone.

Remi, unsure how to articulate in English with all this new information they’ve been presented with, starts flailing in the hope that it will somehow communicate their thoughts. They almost give Derek a black eye as well.

Once their brain is working again, they tell Derek about Mia and then they call Mia to tell her about Derek. It involves a lot of telephone tag. They eventually arrange to meet for lunch the next day so they can get to know each other properly.

It takes the four of them a while to settle into the new dynamic their expanded web demands. Derek and Remi become friends pretty quickly, but they but heads often enough that Mia and James have to mediate between them, until they realize that they’re often saying the same thing in different ways and just aren’t understanding each other.

The soulmarks are a bit awkward as well. Occasionally Remi will stub their toe and James will yell “FUCK” while playing Animal Crossing with Derek. Sometimes Derek will get bored and start doodling dicks on his hand, forgetting that they’re showing up on Mia’s hand as well, usually in the middle of talking to an old lady.

For the most part, though, things run smoothly. Eventually, all four of them move into a larger apartment together. They adopt a cat. James has a garden of succulents arranged on nearly every windowsill.

Things are good.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a rewrite of a story I wrote in my freshman year of high school. Hopefully this is better than the original, but I lost that file when my tablet broke, so I have no way to check. You can find me on tumblr @it-is-how-it-is


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